


Gratitude

by SaphireCorona



Series: Devour the Pure & Divine [3]
Category: The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, No Smut, OFC needs help, One Shot, Sad, Series, obvious daddy issues, swearing!, tension?, too long for a one shot but I don't care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:49:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27676304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaphireCorona/pseuds/SaphireCorona
Summary: A prequel to "Service" (so to speak) to show how Chastity's aberrant fascination with the leader of the Saviors began and ultimately led her to a dissolute relationship with the man we all know and love.
Relationships: Negan (Walking Dead)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Devour the Pure & Divine [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856719
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Gratitude

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, it's winter break!
> 
> So, I have been working on this through the entire fall semester in what little free time I had to keep me from blowing my fucking brains out so it's a) a fucking 30 page one shot, b) complete and utter shit, c) did I mention pointless?
> 
> AnYwAy, I wanted to write about when Negan (aka the hottest post apocalyptic man alive) met Chastity (aka Rick's daddy-issued-ridden-daughter) because I don't know, I thought it'd be fun and interesting and quite honestly it spiraled out of control. Mostly, though, I think Negan has really influenced who Chastity is as a person so I wanted to showcase how little she swore and how...unadulterated she was before Negan came along. 
> 
> This would obviously take place before the first shit story I wrote in this series (Service). That in mind, I wrote (Service) like a bajillion years ago so there's probably some discontinuities/fuck ups in this 'prequel' (if you will). 
> 
> Because I was mostly brain dead from school while writing this, I kept it VERY focused on just Chastity and Negan so as you'll see, there's not a lot of attention given to the other characters in the story. I KNOW it's bad writing on my end but you know what? I'm fucking lazy as fuck. But! I threw in a couple comic cameos because I've been rereading them and I wish the comics never ended. 
> 
> Lastly, there's no sex (boo) because that would be weird (unfortunately) so yeah, like I said, it's *pointless* but hey if you wanna read it, knock yo self out.
> 
> Sorry for any grammatical errors!

Driven by sheer boredom, I carefully and neatly stacked the half-empty pill bottles and mismatched jars of herbs in their appropriate places on the shelf. What felt like hours had passed. I could feel every fiber of my being going stir crazy. I had been locked away in the pharmacy shortly after waking up without a single book or even a crossword puzzle to keep myself busy. As soon as the so-called _Saviors_ rolled up to our gates, my dad rushed me out of sight and told me to stay here until they left.

I didn’t understand how one man could break my father to the point of rolling over and giving up half our supplies. He had always been the strongest willed, most intimidating man left in this godforsaken wasteland. He had never shown a single glimpse of cowardice or weakness. But the morning he came back from burying Glenn and Abraham, he embodied the hopelessness that he had fought back for years. He hadn’t been the same since whatever happened that night, and he refused to say a word about it to me. 

I sighed, my shoulders heaving dramatically with the effort. Voices and stiff conversation began to drift through the slight crack in the window behind the curtain. I could hear my dad, though terse and withdrawn, speaking to a man with a gravely lilt and condescending laugh. It must have been the guy who killed Glenn and Abraham, the man my dad was so afraid of. My face set into an annoyed scowl at the tumultuous predicament this stranger had caused. 

Figuring it wouldn’t bring me or anyone else any harm, I stepped towards the window and peeled the curtain back just enough to get a glimpse outside.

My father had his back towards the house he stowed me away in, but I could see how defeated he felt by the slight fall of his cowering posture and clenching of his fists. I did my best to be inconspicuous as I watched a plethora of strangers pile in and out of various homes with everyone's belongings in their hands. The sight of it was angering, and the way my father let it happen was even more frustrating. At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder when they would wander in and steal half of our medicine; and find me. He couldn’t keep me out of sight forever, no matter how hard he tried. 

My lethal curiosity getting the best of me, I drew the curtain back some more so I could see beyond an inch or two of the streets. I wanted to see this leader of the pillagers. I just wanted to know why my dad hadn’t killed him and been done with it. I mean, how bad could he truly be?

I found him towering over my father with a cocky smile painted across his pepper bearded face. The first feature I noticed was the heavy black leather jacket that covered his broad shoulders. He wore it comfortably, despite the ever-increasing late spring temperatures. His long legs were clad in grey denim that was tucked into his boots and in the one hand that wore a leather glove, he held onto his bat.

Every barb on his bat caught the sunlight as he rested it on his shoulder, accenting the blood stained into the wood. In anyone else’s hands, it would’ve looked like a crudely fashioned tool, made out of scraps when left with nothing to defend oneself. With him, though...the way he held it across his shoulder and swung it in his hand made it look like a scythe. 

Something about his dusky confidence was provocative in every meaning of the word. I’d come across my fair share of tyrannical savages but never anyone that looked like him, that had the effect on my father the way he did. Even as I watched, he talked down to my dad like he was reprimanding a child, the broken reflection of a messiah. 

I knew I’d lost track of how long I’d been gawking at him when he turned his attention away from my father to take a look around the neighborhood, no doubt feeling my eyes on him. Within half a second, he caught me staring and grinned, amused by my eavesdropping, for lack of a better term. Even from fifteen feet away, I couldn’t avoid his disarming, dazzling smile. It gave me a strange, ground-falling-out-from-under-me kind of feeling, and I had to force myself to let the curtain fall back between me and the window just to break free of his stare. 

Knowing I’d destroyed the entire purpose of my dad locking me in here, I hurried away from the window. My heart anxiously rushed to the top of my throat, and I cursed my foolishness all the while as I returned to the monotonous task of stacking pill bottles to calm my nerves. 

After a few minutes, my hands ceased their shaking but I still couldn’t get rid of the chest tightening, stomach twisting sensation that I had collected at the window. It wasn’t fear; I knew that. It felt more like...an impetuous fascination...as if I’d just seen a sunrise for the first time in my life. It made me want to go back for another look to make sure I hadn’t imagined anything. Instead, I grabbed another glass bottle and looked for a fitting place for it while I reasoned with myself. 

“Well, hello, there.”

Dropping the bottle in my hand with a muffled yelp, the glass shattered at my feet, and the pills flung themselves across the room like shrapnel. I turned to see who had managed to sneak into the room without me hearing a single footstep, and my entire body felt like it had been plunged into Arctic waters. 

The man with a sinful smile and a leather jacket stood in the doorway. My heart stopped beating in my chest while my lips parted as I tried to remind myself to breathe. Up close, he was significantly taller than my dad, with dark eyes that almost looked like ash against his jacket, darker hair, and a beard that hadn’t seen a razor in a couple of weeks. He looked to be about my dad’s age, maybe a year or two older, but he seemed too carefree to have carried the same moral weight that my father had for all these years. I stared at him with wide eyes. I expected the air of daunting trepidation, but I wasn’t expecting him to be so…very...prepossessing. I bit down on the inside of my lip as the last thought shamefully raced through my mind. 

What was wrong with me?!

I didn’t say a word. I didn’t know how to. Not when he stole the air out of the room with so little as a smile. I could barely move as he strolled towards me, closing the door behind him. Aside from locking me in with him, something about the way he looked at me made me feel trapped. As he moved closer, I stumbled back against the shelf, and all the bottles I had so carefully placed clattered to the ground by my feet. Ignoring the damage, he stopped just a few inches from me once he had me cornered, his boots crushing the shards of glass into a powder, just like my confidence. He smelled better than anything I could think of, like rich whiskey mixed into warm honey and smoked cinnamon.

His presence was striking and coercive. I suddenly didn’t trust myself to do or say the right thing. “I don’t think we’ve met yet.” His voice was something from a dream as he looked down at me, his tongue gliding across his lower lip when he smiled. 

I set my apprehension aside to make eye contact, which only reprised that nauseatingly, overwhelming exhilaration from before. I didn’t get the outright impression that he was going to hurt me. However, the way my heart was bruising my ribs and corrupting my ability to breathe told me it wasn’t his hands I should be worried about. 

His fingers tapped against the handle of his bat, which was still nestled on his shoulder like a loyal hawk. “Hi," his eyes skirted up and down my frame while mine stared dreadfully at the baseball bat, "I’m Negan.” 

I tried to subdue the slight shiver that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. My only reply was my heart hammering in my chest, and he was no doubt standing close enough to hear it.

I could feel him studying me like a lavish, abstract painting in a museum. It made me feel more self-conscious than ever. “Somethin’ wrong with your mouth?” he laughed quietly, his voice as roughened as his worn-out boots. I shook my head and looked away, but it was clear his curiosity had been piqued by something as he followed my gaze. “Ho-ly shit,” he drawled, leaning back to get a look at the whole picture. “I was gonna ask what the hell you’re doin’ here all by your lonesome, but I get it now." He pointed a finger towards me like a gun, his eyes aimed down the sight. "Rick the Prick has a _daughter_.” 

Unintentionally, my crisp, winter sky eyes, the eyes that inevitably gave me away, shot up to meet his hazel drowned gaze. For the most part, I took after my mother. Upon first glance, my father and I shared few similarities. I had his stark blue eyes, though, and I was well aware of how unforgettable they were. He touched the tips of his fingers to my chin to keep me from diverting my attention again. I winced at the slight shock to my skin as he tilted my face from side to side to make sure he was right.

To soften his demeanor, he let the bat fall from his shoulder, only to plant the end of it between my feet. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” My lips barely shifted, too stunned to speak, but he smiled and let his thumb brush against my jaw as if he was trying to comfort me. Despite the reputation that preceded him, he was aberrantly delicate. “It’s alright. I ain’t gonna hurt you.” He tried to make his voice placating but couldn’t help his roguish nature from scratching his words. 

Still, for some reason, I believed him. I tried to let my eyes fall to my feet so I could take a deep breath and collect myself, but he clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth to reprimand the action and forced my chin back up. The air in my lungs was cold and froze in my chest when I tried to exhale. I closed my eyes tightly for a moment to clear my head before answering. 

“Chastity,” I could hardly manage to make my voice more than a whisper. On any given day, I had the fortitude of my father, but standing here in front of him made me feel about as strong-willed as a blade of grass in a windswept field. 

He grinned like he just heard the best joke in his life. It made me take notice of how incredibly nice his smile looked. “Fuck me, of course, it is.” I frowned, both at his foul language and his laughter. I didn’t exactly understand the humor in my name. Once his chuckle subsided, he sighed, “Excuse the shit out of my motherfuckin’ French, but you are fuckin’ beautiful. You know that?” I think I shook my head, but I was too focused on his crass compliment. “Ah, no wonder your daddy was trying to hide you from me.” My cheeks burned under his unwavering attention as I tried to find where my backbone went. Invading what little personal space I had left, he leaned his lips closer to mine so I could hear him. It felt like standing next to the sun. Part of me wanted to pass out. “You’re supposed to say thank you.” Though he spoke as sweet as summer, I could feel the sharp edge of his authority graze my skin. 

“I’m sorry,” I breathed, unable to recall a time I had ever enjoyed feeling so vulnerable. 

“Don’t be sorry, doll,” he shook his head, and before I realized what he had done, he let his hand fall to my arm to pull me even closer. “Just say thank you.” I flinched, but only because I liked the feeling of his touch, of him telling me what to do. 

He perked a brow and waited for my reply with the cockiest smile on his face. Too far out of my league, I felt lost. “Thank you,” I murmured my gratification, a knot in my throat, my teeth digging into my lip as soon as they were closed. 

His boot stomped the ground and made me jump. “God _damn_ ,” his hand left my arm so his thumb could run along my lower lip to insinuate a dozen different evocative ideas. Something that sounded like a distraught kitten hummed behind my lips. “I think I hit the motherfuckin’ jackpot, findin’ you in here.” After he somehow managed to make my lip feel swollen from his touch, he tipped my chin up until only the light of day could work its way between our lips. “Say it again.” his request almost fell into a scorched, frustrated groan, and my cheeks became hotter than a stovetop. 

Before I gave him what he wanted, the swinging of the door cut me off. “Chastity!” my dad came rushing into the room, his eyes frantic when he found me all too willingly trapped against the shelf. It wasn’t until then when I realized how close I let this would-be killer get to me. 

My sense of self rushed back to me, and I shoved Negan back to free myself of blame from the scenario my father had caught me in. 

Unfettered by my curt rejection, Negan turned on his heel to greet him, his voice a little hoarse. “Rick! Why didn’t you tell me you had such a lovely, _young_ daughter?” He looked over at me with a covetous gaze. 

“Please, just leave her alone.” My dad let one hand hover in the air, just far enough from the gun on his hip to keep the matter peaceful. The sweat on his skin made the collar of his blue button-up stick to his neck and his dark curls cling to his forehead. He looked wrecked by the day already and it was only ten in the morning. “Chastity,” he called for me to come to his side, but my feet were glued to the hardwood. 

Negan looked at me, and my cheeks went red as soon as his eyes fell on them. He chuckled, satisfied with himself, with what he had done to me. I felt his fingertips drift down my spine until he could rest his palm against my lower back as he gently ushered me away from him, granting me passage. “Go on, sweetheart, go to your daddy,” he whispered in my ear. I muttered a half-hearted thank you and stumbled past him, back to my dad, who pulled me into his side once I was within arm's reach. 

Apologetically, he pressed his lips to my temple before gripping my shoulders to give me a once over. “Did he hurt you?” he asked, his voice quiet and stern. Solemnly, I shook my head. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to look back at the leader of the Saviors when I could feel his eyes on every movement my lips made. Nodding, he said, “Go to your room and lock the door.” His jaw tightened, and I could tell he was trying his best to keep from lashing out at Negan for simply talking to me. 

But I wanted to stay out in the open. The cat was out of the bag, so why did I need to hide again? “Dad, I’m fine,” I argued under my breath. Just because I was his daughter, it wasn’t fair that I had to be locked away like some last surviving, priceless heirloom. 

The savior exaggerated his already obnoxious sigh. “Relax, prick, I didn’t touch a single hair on her pretty little head.” Negan moved closer to the door, to my father, towards me. A knee jerk reaction to his presence made me look to the floor again. “I just wanna know why you locked her away all by herself. I mean, what are you afraid of?”

Then a shot rang through the streets and cut the three of us into silence. 

Dread poured over my dad’s already pale face. “Chastity, go home,” rushing the words out, he advocated for my safety. Knowing I no longer had a choice in the matter, I did as I was told. But before I made it halfway to the door, Negan swiftly grabbed me by the back of my shirt, his fingers twisted into the gossamer overshirt I wore to accent my grey tee. He clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth a few times as he dragged me back to him. 

“Please, just let her go.” Desperate as ever, my only living family member begged, his eyes brimming with saline concern for my well being. My captor said naught a word in reply as he glared at my father, his face calm, but his already heated eyes livid. 

Keeping me in the line of fire, he grabbed my upper arm in a gentle hold and shoved the bat in his other hand into my dad’s chest as he forced me to walk past him and through the door. “Trade ya,” he smirked. 

My gaze whipped back to my dad as I got dragged away, but he was too busy looking at the bloodied weapon in his hands to realize that I was seeking sanctuary from him. I didn’t know where he was taking me, or what he was going to do, but it was fair to say that the likelihood of it ending well was close to none. 

My new guide pulled on my arm to bring my attention back to the fact that I was on my own now. “Let’s go for a walk, doll,” Negan spoke his intentions as we wandered down the hallway towards the front door. I could tell he was irritated by the flat line his lips had formed, but the pounding in my head told me not to let my gaze linger on him for any longer than I had to. 

I should’ve never looked out that window. 

* * *

I was certain I’d have an imprint of his hand on my arm as he refused to let me go, even when we found the culprit of the gunshot. 

Spencer stood in front of a half-circle of grungy, brutish men who were twice his size with five times the experience of knocking people down. The large-caliber pistol in his hand was pointed to the ground, and I wondered where the bullet had gone, or why he had even pulled the trigger. 

My father, my imprisoner, and I all stood in front of Spencer’s house, a place I had been in only a handful of times for a few less than great-tasting dinners he offered to make me. 

Spencer was nice enough. Tall, lanky, the face of a brown-haired pretty boy who never had much of anything interesting on his mind and wore an undesirable amount of khaki...but nice. Shortly after we arrived in Alexandria, the former leader, Deanna, threw some aberrant dinner party to welcome us. My father had dragged me along and forced me to interact with a community that I figured would be dead by now. For whatever reason, I had caught Spencer’s eye and he persistently showered me with petulant attention for the following week until I gave in to his request for a dinner date. 

While I sometimes enjoyed the attention from him, the romantic, simplistic affection we shared was one-sided. He’d say we were _dating_ , call me his _girlfriend_ , but I refused to let him hold my hand or do anything more than a two-second peck on the lips. My dad didn’t care for him as he was closer to thirty while I had barely passed twenty. Not to mention, he wasn’t the smartest survivor, and I surely wouldn’t rest my life in his hands anytime soon.

Case in point. 

Spencer knew he had put everyone into a bind, however, when he turned on his heel to see Negan with a cocky but malicious smile on his face. His eyes flickered to me when he noticed that the man who had murdered two of our own had an unrelenting hold on my arm. I could see the wave of guilt and agitation wash over him, which surely wasn’t eased by my father’s steady glare from the right of me.

Unthreatened and royally pissed, Negan’s glare could have set fire to a field. “Really, kid?" he exasperated. I gathered that the two had already met and started out on a bad foot. "You are _not_ makin' a good fuckin' impression on me today.” My weight shifted with his when he leaned back to emphasize his disbelief. I stamped my feet quietly against the blacktop to ground myself, my palms damp with apprehension. While Spencer was older than me, the word _kid_ wasn’t totally inaccurate. He could be thoughtless and make reckless choices like a half-cocked, hormonal teenager. 

Afraid Negan would notice, I hesitantly lifted my eyes from the ground to look at my dad for some kind of reassurance. He stood a few feet away, knowing better than to try and fight for my freedom at the moment. It only took him half a second to notice my silent plea for help, and he did his best to convey all the comfort he could through his bloodshot eyes. But he couldn’t hide the utter defeat that raged through him, and it didn’t really make me feel better. 

At last, Spencer finally found his voice, “You said half of our supplies. They’re taking all of it. I don’t have anything left!” His hands were shaking, though he tried to disguise it with his raucous shout. Negan looked about as amused as one would be from a Sunday comic, but he let him continue without interruption. 

His unwavering, impassive demeanor was unsettling, to say the least.

“You all got what you need, now go.” Idiotically, he brandished the gun about like a no trespassing sign that the Saviors ignored and then some. 

When my father did nothing but remain stock-still, I intervened before I got drenched in a bloodbath.

“Spencer!” I scolded his name to spare my own life. Just because I didn’t think Negan would be the first to hurt me, I wasn’t hedging any bets on getting out of this unscathed if idiots like Spencer were asking for trouble. “Put the gun down! Please.” I did my best to soften my tone to feign some form of adoration for him. “For me.” I could feel the dark-haired man with a slick smile watch me as I tried to reason with Spencer. 

My on and off again dinner date looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. I wasn’t raised to relinquish sovereignty at the first sign of danger and let people do or take whatever they want, but I knew that there were exceptions to the rule. Specifically, when we were outnumbered, and my life was being dangled in front of me. 

“Let her go.” In a bold move to prove his asinine chivalry, he pointed the gun right between Negan’s mahogany eyes. 

My own eyes snapped shut in dread of what his actions would bring. I hadn't planned on dying today, but it felt like I was nearing the end of the line. 

Negan sucked the air in between his teeth and rocked back on his heels once more. “You got balls, kid, I’ll give you that.” The abrupt tension that jerked through my body when he facilely snatched the gun from Spencer’s hand forced me to open my eyes. When I did, I found Spencer empty-handed, his face the color of blanched trepidation. 

The indomitable leader pulled me in front of his chest to make a display. “Listen, I like your girlfriend here,” with the hammer already pulled back and his leather-gloved finger hovering over the trigger, he pressed the barrel to my temple. Dreadfully, I held my breath to train my heart to inevitably stop beating. I heard my dad’s boots scuffle against the pavement in a panic, but someone must have held him back. “I don’t want to hurt her just to prove a point here.” 

“Please, please don’t. Take what you want, just don't hurt her.” From somewhere behind us, my father pleaded for me to be left out of this mess. Unfortunately for the both of us, Negan didn't strike me as the kind of man to consider such requests.

“Rick, if you say one more goddamn word, I will unload this fucking gun into your daughter’s head.” The still warm steel of the handgun burned against my skin as he spoke. Between the threat of an unjustified death and his fingers bruising my arm, I wanted to cry, but I felt like it would only make matters worse for my dad. “Now,” sighing, he returned his unwanted attention to Spencer, “what we take, is not up to you. It’s up to me. And if I want to take everything but the clothes on your fucking back, then I sure as shit will.” 

The rigid anger in his voice caused tremors to ricochet through my body. “Stop shakin', doll, you’re gonna make my finger slip.” he paused to let his words sink in, and I felt his thumb rub a few circles over my skin to coerce my trembling into submission. Once his touch nullified the aftershocks he caused, he digressed back to his lecture. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Ye-yes,” Spencer struggled to get the smallest sound out. I’d never seen someone be able to cripple and demean a man down to nothing as quickly as the leader of the Saviors could. The amount of power he could wield with a single look was appalling.

“Good,” the caliginous clouds left his voice to signal the worst was over. 

Or so I thought.

In one fell swoop, the gun left my head as he pointed it at Spencer and pulled the trigger, shooting him in the leg. I gasped and pressed my back further into Negan’s chest to try and steer clear of Spencer as he fell to the ground in front of us. His face contorted in pain as his hands clamped around his surely shattered knee. It didn’t take long for blood to drip through his khakis but I couldn’t seem to find an ounce of concern for his wellbeing as I watched him writhe and cry for help. 

Negan held the gun limply in his hand and slipped his arm across my upper body to keep me close. “Sorry about your boyfriend,” he chuckled about his bloodied indiscretions, his beard scratching at my ear. I pulled my head away from his touch and stared at the asphalt, the only unbiased medium I had left to look at. I should’ve been disgusted, but his voice made me weak in the knees rather than revolted.

My eyes were pulled away when he turned us towards my dad, ready to castigate him further. I could already feel tomorrow’s aches creeping through my body. He wasn’t rough, but he wasn’t very gentle either as he yanked me around like a wilted flower. 

Ashamed of how tightly his hands were tied, my father didn’t look at either of us when Negan spoke, “You know, prick, this reminds me: you have a lot of guns stashed away here. I would hate for your dumbass people’s dumbass choices to get someone as hot as her killed.” He raised his other hand to my face to meet the loose strands of hair that fell in front of my eyes. He tucked them behind my ear to make it easier for him to press his lips to my temple for the briefest kiss that made my heart drop and a delirious fever creep through my body. 

My dad, aghast, watched a scene from his nightmares unfold in front of him yet did nothing. Negan waited for an irascible reaction from my once overprotective father. Instead, he tensed his jaw and kept whatever was on his mind trapped behind clenched teeth, his eyes icier than ever. Negan drawled a satisfied laugh and patted my shoulder to reward himself. “So, I’ll do you all a favor. Your guns? They’re all mine now!” 

* * *

As we stood at the top of the stairs outside the armory, I tried to listen in on the conversations happening inside to distract myself from the fact that Negan now had his arm around my shoulder with a smug look on his face at how much he managed to mock and irritate my father by doing so. It made me feel like a pawn in his manipulative game of chess. Had I been anyone else’s daughter, I doubt he would have acknowledged my existence. I wasn’t sure which I would’ve hated more: being ignored as an insipid individual or revered as a profitable hostage. 

There were times when I would catch myself more or less leaning into his stalwart frame if my feet started hurting or my muscles began to ache from all the stress. I’d immediately straighten myself back out, only for the cycle to repeat itself a dozen more times. 

He caught onto my spontaneous habit and milked it for all it was worth. Catching me in a moment of fatigue, his fingers tightened their glowing red iron grip on my shoulder to prevent me from shifting my weight to and fro. Smirking, he glanced at the bat that my father was still tasked with holding onto. The way he spoke about it and stared at it could be classified as adoration. I couldn’t begin to understand his personification of a baseball bat but, as long as it stayed away from me, I wouldn’t ask any questions.

“Oh, I do believe Lucille is getting a little jealous,” he laughed in my ear, his nose pressed against my hair. I turned my head away to try and make my blushing less noticeable. I wasn’t sure if the blood rushed to my cheeks because my father had been standing a few feet away or because I liked the attention, the way the heat of his breath caressed my skin. “I’ve got the right mind to bring you back home with me.” He pulled back to give my dad a condescending smile. “Might be worth it to have some collateral around.” 

My father's silence came to a sharp, rebellious end. He stepped towards us, but it didn’t have an effect on Negan’s behavior in the slightest. “No. Absolutely not. You can take whatever the hell you want, but she is off-limits.” His voice once had me believing that he could strike fear into the devil himself but today proved to me that he was just another man. 

Negan exhaled a puff of air through his nose, unimpressed, acknowledging him with the bare minimum of a reply. “We’ll see about that.” 

Then, one of the scowling women who followed his orders without question came trudging up the stairs with the notebook that I used to keep track of everything in her hand. She wore dark clothes on her small frame to match her leader. The lightest part about her were the flecks of blonde she had bleached into her otherwise black hair. Her face didn’t have a single laugh line and I could probably count the number of times she had ever smiled on one hand. Even so, the seemingly permanent baleful expression on her face made my stomach drop. 

With my shoulder tucked snugly against his side, he swung around to greet her, “Arat, what you got for me?” 

Her glare didn’t budge from my flushed face while she gruffly placed the curled, light green notebook I used for inventory in his flat, expectant palm. If I didn’t know any better, I think she would’ve liked to kill me for no reason beyond the simple fact that she could. “We checked everything. They’re missing two handguns.”

Frantic, I looked from her to my dad for security but, just as before, he didn’t seem to have anything to offer except the hollow shell of who he was. His cerulean eyes were just as confused, and I felt the urge to shout at him to do or say something to offset the palpable fear I felt. 

Negan’s voice was rife with disappointment, and his diminutive frown said that I’d just lost a few brownie points from him. Harsher than waking up from a bad dream, he pushed me away from him so he could effectively tower over me. Arat took a few steps closer to Negan’s side to create a united front of intimidation. 

“Is that true, _dear?_ ” He continued on with the pet names, but this time it sounded like an insult. 

At first, I nodded. Then I shook my head. It left me feeling dizzy as I teetered on the faded border of hyperventilating. There was a reason my father put me in charge of the armory. He knew he could trust me to keep everything in check, but now I wished the burden had fallen on someone else. 

“I...I don’t...know why. I swear--” Again, I looked to my war-torn father. “Dad?! Do something!” I called for his alibi, or at the very least to stand up for me! 

He stared through me as if my plea was the chirping of a passing bird. After I called for him again, he managed to find his voice, even if it was broken and battered by the sheer sound of Negan’s caustic tone. “Look, we had a couple people leave to hunt and scavenge. They probably have them.” 

“So...your darling daughter sucks at her job, then? Is that what you’re telling me?” His brows pinched towards the bridge of his nose to display his incredulity. Admittedly, I shared the sentiment. I knew the only way the guns could be missing without me knowing about it, is if someone broke in and stole them after I had counted everything yesterday. 

I could see his frustration trickling out as my father’s lips set into a flat line, “No, I’m not. I’m saying it’s not her fault.” 

Annoyed and impatient with my dad, the overpowering leader faced me. “But there’s supposed to be a full accounting in this book here, what comes in, what goes out.” I took a few steps back to get away from his asperity, but he caught me by the arm with a bruising grip before I stumbled off the curb and onto my backside. “Right?” 

Whatever kindness he had for me had gone out the window, if there ever was any, to begin with. I stared up at him, my eyes desperately searching for a level on which to reason with him. His lips parted in an expectant but portentous smile as I stammered through the maze of words he managed to turn my mind into. 

“It’s...yes. I...write everything down. It’s right! I swear!” My voice broke into a fear-induced shout, and it took all I had to keep the burning, salty tears in my eyes from staining my cheeks. 

I wanted to cower, but he held me upright with a leather-gloved hand on my jaw. My fingers instinctively tried to pry his grip away, my nails scratching on the fabric before they slipped down to his wrist. The depraved smile he gave me when my fingertips pressed against his skin made my heart give out for a solid minute. 

“Sweetheart,” he crooned my transitory name like silk over an open flame, “I wanna believe you. Truly, I do, but this shit ain’t adding up.” Purposefully, his calloused palm slipped its way around my throat with just enough pressure to make me think I couldn’t breathe. I could feel my ragged pulse throbbing against his finger, and he breathed a chuckle but continued. “If you know where those missing guns are, just tell me, and I’ll forget this ever happened.” 

I had this unfathomable, disconcerting desire to please him. The fact that I had pissed him off was enough to let a glossy, salient trail of tears spill over and get caught on my bottom lip before hitting the ground. “I don’t know! Please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” 

After his fire-scarred, chestnut eyes spent a minute wandering my features like he owned them, his hand fell with his prolonged sigh, laced with what sounded like regret. Shamelessly, I whimpered and sniffled myself back into one functioning piece, ignoring the pitiful looks from him and my father. 

He dragged his hand over his beard and returned to me with a softer demeanor. Call me naive, but he sounded remorseful. “I don’t want to kill you, darlin’, let alone make you cry. Shit,” he pulled out a scarlet red cut of fabric from his back pocket and gave it to me to dry my eyes, “but this was your job, and you fucked up.” 

He had me nodding my head in understanding, and I forced myself to meet his ever expectant gaze to face my judgment. This man had the most captivating eyes I’d ever had the misfortune of staring into. They were impassively dark, like the bottom of a lake that I had to talk myself out of jumping into. “So tell me. What should I do?”

I nearly forgot my father stood a few feet away until he made himself known with the clearing of his throat. “We can find them, just let me look.” His interjection sounded forced, freshly unearthed from a cold grave. It was all too little too late. 

The last time someone put their hands on me, my dad, without blinking, put a hatchet through their neck. Now, he was willing to let me stand in harm’s way if it meant he could avoid a conflict. His broken indifference frightened me more than the devil standing an inch away from me. 

“Tsst, tsst, tsst,” Negan held his finger up to my dad, which he flinched at like a dog to a combative hand, “I wasn’t fucking talking to you now, was I?” My father’s posture deflated once more and he looked down at the bat in his hand with a grimace.

Clinging to the makeshift handkerchief he gave me, I pulled in a sharp breath. “Let...let my dad look for them. If by the end of the day he doesn’t find them, I’ll…” The truth of the matter echoed inside my head like an unforgiving bell toll. I knew what Negan wanted and I knew that my father was too lost in his own despair to keep me from drowning in my own treacherous waters. My eyes closed, and I exhaled in fear of what came next, “I’ll go with… with you. For...collateral.”

“Chastity, no!” My dad barked at me the same way he used to when I said something disrespectful to him or my late mother, but the effect it had on me paled in comparison to the way I felt when Negan yelled at me, and right now, I’d give anything to keep the leader of the Saviors happy. It was lethal not to. 

My offer did the trick. Negan bit his lip but couldn’t hide his oddly overjoyed grin. I wasn’t so sure of myself to think he had been looking for the slightest excuse to whisk me away from my home and do God knows what to me, but it certainly seemed like it. 

“You better start looking, prick. Otherwise,” he grabbed my arm and pulled my back to him, his tongue running across his lip to highlight his smile, “she’s all fucking mine.” 

* * *

He watched me in intrigue as I paced back and forth in between him and the house my father and a few others were currently searching through for the missing guns. Twenty minutes had passed and I had spent every second of those twenty minutes wracking my brain for where the guns were. I had convinced myself that they had been stolen (or maybe that Arat lady was lying in an attempt to upend my life) but stealing them would have been pointless. Everyone had access to the guns, my father just wanted them accounted for at all times. So why would anyone steal them?

Maybe I did lose them.

In my mute frustration, I kicked a rock with enough force to make it bounce up against the eggshell white siding of the one-story home before skirting away from me. Huffing another throat aching sigh, I folded my arms across my chest and diverted my anxiety to tapping my foot against the grass. 

“Why don’t you sit down? Gettin’ worked up isn’t gonna move things along,” he suggested. I stopped and looked over at him. He sat there, dark and desirous, in the middle of a sturdy wooden sun yellow porch bench among the bushes of blue and pink hydrangeas with his arms spanning across the back and his legs stretched out to take up every empty space. The billowing willow tree that loomed overhead created a nice patch of shade with the occasional rays of sun when the wind would blow the branches just right. 

It looked more inviting than a good book and a blanket on a rainy day but there wasn’t anywhere to sit where I wouldn’t be touching him, which is something I wanted to avoid because it was starting to feel like sticking my finger in a light socket. 

I hesitated, and he repeated his last words with a little more force. “Sit.” With a capitulated breath, I gave in and started towards him, intending on sitting at the very end, until he grabbed my wrist and pulled me down beside him. A stunted yelp of surprise squeaked past my lips, and he chuckled pleasantly like he had just witnessed a puppy do something infinitesimally cute, “That’s better now, ain’t it?” 

My cheeks turned red in a silent but fervent agreement, and I nodded for him. I never thought it was possible for me to be so terrified of but enraptured by, and dare I say attracted to, an individual. It was going to take me weeks to process every little emotion he made me feel. 

I shifted my posture a few dozen times until I realized touching him in some way or form was inevitable. He watched me try to relax and chuckled, which only made me more tense and nervous. Eventually, I gave up and let my back rest against the back of the chair but stiffened for a moment when I felt my neck lean against the arm he had stretched out behind my head. I huffed the air out of my lungs and did my best to keep my shoulders loose to avoid a headache. 

I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he leaned over to the side table where a pitcher of lemonade sat. Before we wound up here, he had forced one of his people to make it as he saw them carrying it out of our collective pantry. “You want somethin’ to drink? It’s fuckin’ hot out.” He offered me the first glass he poured. I stared at the crystal and watched the powdered mix dissolve into the water for a few moments before I realized how thirsty I was. 

“Sure,” I lifted a hand from my lap and took it from him. “Thank you.” I took a long drink and used my thumb to wipe the excess from my lips. When he leaned over to get himself his own glass, I used the opportunity to steal a few unwarranted glances of him. Regardless of who he was or what he had done, he was nice to look at. 

As he poured, he filled the silence between us with amicable conversation. “You from here?” He started with the basics, even though we were long past the point of introductions. 

I shook my head, “No, we’re from Georgia.” My dad’s accent, though subtle, was far more prevalent than mine. I had a few tell-tale signs of southern roots sprinkled throughout my dialect but they were few and far between. I wondered where he was from. He had a drawl, almost, but nothing distinct. I liked it, whatever it was. 

The hostility he had fronted at the armory seemed like a bad dream now as he came across friendlier than ever. “How long you been livin’ here, then?”

I had to think about it for a minute. I stopped counting days, and even hours, years ago. My dad kept a watch on his wrist all the time for reasons I never understood. Clocks and calendars were meaningless nowadays. “A few months...five or six, maybe.” The seasons had shifted from late fall to early spring. That was all I knew. 

He pressed on, determined to pick out the minuscule details of my life while not allowing me to reciprocate. “Where’d you live before this place?”

“Well,” I licked the sugared residue from my lips. That’s when I felt his eyes taking in the fact that my cheeks were still tinted pink and my gaze kept fighting to reach him. “We were holed up in a prison for a year or two, but then someone destroyed it so we were back on the road.” I left out the gory details to keep it brief. I could’ve written a book on my time at the prison alone. I spent my teens in a cell surrounded by death with the occasional glimmer of hope. It wasn't the best time of my life. Still, it could have been worse, I suppose. 

“Then, we found this place that seemed safe but the people living there were, uh, cannibals.” Terminus made me want to stay on the road and away from people until I took my last breath. It was horrific and to this day still woke me up in the middle of the night on the verge of a screaming heart attack. If there was ever something more sinister than being forced to watch people get knocked out and their throats slit open, knowing they were going to be hung up like cows in a butcher shop, I’d rather die than see it. 

Even Negan looked disgusted by it, further proving he wasn’t the monster my father made him out to be. “What the shit? You fuckin’ serious?”

“Yeah...having someone tell me that he thinks I would taste good is not something I want to experience again.” I cracked an ill-humored joke and his shoulders shifted with a short-lived laugh. If he had been trying to get me to relax, I hated to admit that it was working. “But we got out of there and started making our way north until we wound up here.” The journey from Georgia to Virginia was another long, bloody story that I didn’t wish to get into right now, so I left it at that. 

“Shit, I thought I had it bad.” He took another drink and shifted his weight until his knee was leaning into mine. Hoping he wouldn’t notice, I let the tension out of my legs just enough so I could see what it felt like to give way to his touch. When he smiled, I knew I had lost my gamble. “You an only child?” Slightly embarrassed about my slip up, I nodded and hummed for an answer. “Daddy’s girl, then, eh?” I shrugged meekly, sensing a meaning written between the lines of his words that I didn’t entirely understand. With a devious smirk, he did his best to carry on with our casual conversation. “Just been you two this whole time?”

I knew the question about my missing mother would come up. It always did. “No, my mom died when we got overrun at the prison. The dead got to her. She couldn’t make it out.” I’d cried for months over the loss of my mother. Aside from the fact that I watched her get torn apart by walkers, the gaping absence of her in my life had marred my judgment of right and wrong. I had killed people without flinching. My friends, people who had become my family, would die and I’d forget about them the next day. I just didn’t feel much of anything anymore.

In fact, Negan was the first person to elicit that much emotion from me in years. Even if I had cried out of fear and desperation, it was still nice to _feel_ something again. 

His voice became so soothing that it made me want to close my eyes. “Sorry to hear that. That’s fuckin’ shitty.” When I looked up at him, he wasn’t smiling but his comely face still conveyed comfort and sympathy. I blamed it on his eyes. They were strangely hypnotic. 

I took a deep breath to keep my mind from wading into the riptide that I’d surely get caught in if I looked at him a moment longer. “Everyone’s mother is dead. There’s nothing to be sorry about… but thanks.” I didn’t mean to sound so cold, but I knew he wouldn’t take it personally. 

No doubt sensing my despondency, he changed the subject, but not before letting his arm slip from the back of the bench so it could lie against my shoulders. “You got any hobbies?” My eyes shifted to the side to make sure I wasn’t imagining his fingertips toying with the loose fabric on my upper arm. It made it harder to shake the feeling that we were on a first date.

I shrugged but not enough to move his hand away from me, “I like to read, mostly.” It's how I spent any and all of my free time. Our home in Alexandria came stocked with a menagerie of DVDs, but I still preferred the written word to take my mind off the world I lived in.

Relentless, he had another slew of questions lined up for me. “What kind of books?”

“I don’t know,” I dragged the tip of my boot along the loose pebbles along the ground. “I read a lot of romance novels. Whatever I can get my hands on. I haven’t found any new ones lately.” Of course, from the looks of it, his people would probably take all the books I had. I bit down on the inside of my lip to keep my frown from showing. 

Pensively, he lightly rapped his fingers against me. What may have been an annoying action felt rather pleasant against my tense muscles. “We’ve got a shitton of books at the Sanctuary. I can bring you some next time I get my shit from your fearless father.” He mocked the only family I had left with a sarcastic tone at the end.

My ears and eyes perked at his offer, even though it would be at my dad’s expense. I steeled myself to look at him only to be met with an unexpectedly warm smile, perfectly framed by his dimples. The whole ensemble caught me off guard, but not nearly as much as the inappropriate stutter my heart took on. 

“Oh, that’d be great. If it’s not too much trouble, anyway.” I went from enthusiasm to discomfiture as I replied. 

He picked up on it and reassured me, “Not at all, darlin’.” The way he spoke made me shiver the same way I did when I walked into a warm room after being trapped in the cold. Sighing into our impromptu conversation, he dragged his hand over his beard in nostalgic thought. I caught him doing that a few times today. I liked it. “My wife was always a sucker for that sappy shit. Spent every goddamn weekend reading ‘em.” 

I knew I should’ve kept any and all contact with him to a minimum, but I found enjoyment in the dark song of his voice and how his eyes sparked with attentiveness when I looked at him. “What...uh...what was her name?” 

He stared back at me with a bit of a blank facade, his voice dry. “Lucille.” It took me a minute to process and put everything together but, when I connected the dots, I could only imagine the confusion painted on my face. Having something that reminded him of his late wife would have been one thing, but using it to brutally murder people was...unsettling. He let out a morbid chuckle at my realization. “You probably think I’m a fucking lunatic, don’t you?” 

Slowly, I shook my head. On the list of disturbing things I’d seen, heard, and done, his actions were on the bottom of that list. “No, I don’t think that.” Brutish and merciless, maybe, but not insane. Besides, I’d witnessed my dad commit some heinous, violent acts over the years: biting a man’s throat out, stabbing someone until they were more wounds than flesh, beating an innocent man nearly to death...the competition for savagery wasn’t too fierce in my eyes.

Somehow, he knew there was more on my mind, and he kept quiet, watching my lips for the slightest movement. I hesitated at first when I opened my mouth but, eventually, I summoned the courage. “When my mom died, my dad kinda...lost it. He found this old phone and thought he could, I don’t know, talk to my mom through it. He kept it with him for a few years. Sometimes at night, I’d wake up to him talking to himself, er, to my mom.” I made sure to keep my eyes on the hands that were folded on my lap. I wasn’t trying to comfort his concerns of how I perceived him by any means, but at least I sort of understood his reluctance to let go of the past. “I guess what I’m getting at is we all have our coping mechanisms.” 

When I let my eyes wander back to his seemingly flawless yet rugged smile, he had been busy with assiduously studying my flushed face. We stared at one another for a moment before he leaned back and took another drink to dissolve the electrified silence. “That must’ve been hard on you, losing your parents like,” he set the glass down before he snapped his fingers in the air, one after the other. 

I felt my lip unconsciously glide across my lip as I watched him move. “Yeah, I mean, I guess I never looked at it like that but…” Truly, though, my dad had never been the same after my mom. I became another person he strived to keep alive as opposed to his daughter. He still cared for me and took the time to remind me that he loved me, but after a few years, I became numb to the lack of paternal bond I often needed.

Following in his footsteps, I took a meek sip of sugary water before I continued. Whoever had made it must have blindly poured the mix into the water because it was cloying. “Look, I know this doesn’t mean anything to you, but I don’t agree with what my dad did. It was wrong, and I’m sorry about all the people you lost.” I had fought my dad on his decision tooth and nail, but he’d give me multiple variations of the same speech every time to refute my last sliver of humanity. I understood killing people who were a threat, but in this case, killing the Saviors made them into a threat that we could’ve avoided. 

“Well, I appreciate the hell out of that.” He gave a simple but picturesque smile to show his gratitude. I couldn’t quite tell if he was serious or not. Now that he had me comfortable with his overwhelming presence, he hugged me against his side until I could feel the zipper of his jacket pocket through my shirt. “You must take after your mother. You’re not like him; you’re smarter, less...emotional.” There used to be a time when my father was more level-headed; it’s what made him successful in law enforcement. Unfortunately, the end of the world had only degraded his temper. 

“Yeah,” I agreed with him but didn’t know what else to say. I waited for him to ask me another question but instead, he tipped his head back to look at the sky to see where the sun was at in lieu of checking a watch that he didn’t have. Wanting my own answers, I asked, “Did you...do you have kids?” I sought out an explanation of his unexpected affinity towards me. 

He returned his attention to me as I remained sheltered by his frame. His upper lip twitched in distaste of the topic I chose to discuss. “No, ain’t my thing.” 

“Oh.” I couldn’t say I was surprised, he said things that I’d never hear my dad say in a million years. Still, it left me wondering why he seemed to harbor a soft spot for me. 

He appeared bothered by the fact that I got quiet again. I didn’t know why he cared. “What?”

Confused and uneasy, I leaned forward, away from him, and cradled my chest in my arms. “Why are you being so nice to me?” It was clear he held an unwavering aversion towards my father. One would think I’d be wrapped up in that despise. 

He shrugged but smiled to keep his motives hidden. “Guess I’m a sucker for a pretty face.” I shook my head in disagreement. 

I wasn’t anything special to look at. I had more curves than not, my dark hair had never decided between being straight or wavy, and despite how long I’d spent in the sun, I could never move past a warmer shade of ivory. I hated the way I looked in clothes and despised the sound of my own voice. Why he’d even bother with lying about my looks was beyond me.

Besides, the other women in Alexandria were far more pleasing to the eye. Rosita was strong-willed and effortlessly pretty. Maggie was the striking Southern Belle, right down to the honeyed smile. Michonne’s strength alone made her beautiful but on top of that, she had a physique that any girl would’ve killed for. 

In any case...they were all a lot closer to him in age. 

Tersely, he yanked me back to where I had been, resting against his arm, only an inch or two between us. Another shot of adrenaline spiked my blood at his flaring temper, and I mumbled a half-hearted apology before he told me to. “I ain’t big on lyin’. If I didn’t think you were fuckin’ drop-dead gorgeous, I wouldn’t say shit.” I couldn’t tell if he was pissed off by my lack of cooperation or if he was just trying to intimidate me for the heck of it. I didn’t want to find out.

I blinked a few times in thought, or maybe shock. I had rarely been complimented so markedly and talked to so stringently. “I don’t think you’re that shallow,” I stated with a semblance of confidence. Whether he thought I was pretty or not, he wouldn’t be so kind just for that; not if what I heard what he’d done was true. “What do you want from me?” At first, I figured I was leverage, a method to keep my father under his thumb. Now...I wasn’t so sure.

He tilted his head to the side and gave me a contemplative stare. I waited patiently for an answer, reluctant to be the first one to look away, but the only thing I received was his deliberate, magnetic smile. “I got an idea!” he changed the subject, knowingly ignoring my question. “Why don’t you give me a grand ‘ol tour of the Grimes house? Where do you lay that pretty little head every night? Hmm? Maybe I’ll find something I can _take_ from you in there.” Leaning closer, he bit down on his lower lip to tease me with something I didn’t know I wanted. 

His words sank through my vestal understanding like quicksand. When they finally reached the bottom, my head snapped back and my expression became accusatory with my lips parted in offense to what he was insinuating. It only caused his grin to brighten.

I mean, was this guy really suggesting the idea of taking my _virginity_?

My face discovered a new shade of crimson. “What?! No!” 

“I think you misunderstand me, darlin’,” his calloused hand cupped my chin again, and it felt like another hit of a drug I became addicted to all too quickly. I couldn’t help but melt at his touch, the way a candle gives in to the harshness of a flame. “You’re gonna give it to me...eventually.” Heated and impatient, he whispered, his tongue painting a picture of what had been left unsaid when he ran it across his lip. Distraught by the sudden onslaught of aching lechery working through my body, I sighed loudly to dispute him. He challenged me still as if he had the future written on the back of his hand. “Wanna bet?”

* * *

“Well, this is it.” I stood in the space between the kitchen and the living room, as close to the front door as I could without it seeming like I would make a run for it the second he turned his back on me. 

My two-story home was eerily quiet with a vindictive, scurrilous stranger inside its walls. I kept telling myself that I just had to keep my head on straight until my father found the guns and sent Negan on his way home, hopefully, without me. 

He wandered through the kitchen, opening a few cupboards, the fridge and toying with the lever on the sink faucet to see if the water was working. As if to test the acoustics, he started whistling a simple but ominous tune as he went. With my wrists crossed at my waist, I knitted my brows at his innocuous meddling, somewhat surprised he wasn’t taking anything, but I kept my mouth shut and let him do as he pleased. 

His heels clicked against the hardwood as he made his way back to me. “This is just the kitchen,” he challenged my attempt to make this the shortest tour in history. He tore his sole glove off and stuffed in his back pocket, and I tensed my jaw to keep any one particular emotion from showing, and did my best not to stare as he unzipped his jacket and shrugged it away from his shoulders so he could toss it on the island that he was navigating around.

But, my eyes were continuously drawn to him like a moth to a flame, ignorant to the inevitable mess of ash I’d find myself in if I lingered for too long. The slightest glimpse had me stifling a wistful sigh. Objectively, I found him extraordinarily pleasing to the eye and even a little charming. Subjectively? His looks were damnable, and he was a savage malefactor that should’ve had me running in the opposite direction until my legs gave out.

I shrugged, then brushed the lint off my shirt before fixing the hair out of my eyes, which led to me scratching behind my neck as I painted invisible pleas for help onto the floor with the toe of my boot. Really, I did anything to keep my attention off of him. His plain white tee made the dark ink on his skin stand out all the more and the loss of his jacket revealed how he had his wrist wrapped on the off chance he’d have to use his bat to kill someone else today. 

Even with his shirt on, I could tell said bat kept him in good shape. “There’s really not much to see.” It felt as if I was talking to myself just as much as I was to him.

“Bullshit!” he raised his voice, albeit playfully. Nonetheless, it jumpstarted my heart into panic mode once more. “There’s a whole mess of rooms upstairs, and I’m betting one of ‘em’s yours.” My eyes traveled up his frame to meet his devilish smirk as he strode towards me. I winced when he stopped an inch or two away from me, the way I would when I stared up at the sun in the early morning hours. He frowned as my feet remained frozen to the hardwood, seemingly unaware of the various hints he was dropping. “Darlin’,” he spoke stringently, “do not make me repeat myself.”

I pulled at my fingers and gnawed on my lip, anxious at the sheer thought of showing him my bedroom. I'd never become familiar with the scenario of sneaking a guy into my room, the way long lost television shows or adolescent books portrayed, but I was quite certain that this is how it was supposed to feel: reprehensible, sinful even. A sin against myself, my dad, and whatever remained of my morality.

But still, that nagging voice in the confines of my mind wanted to know what would happen if I followed through with something this dissipated. 

Even though I knew it'd be in vain, I implored him to stop dragging me into situations in which I would invariably do something I couldn’t come back from. “Can we...can’t we stay down here...please?”

The look on his face said he found enjoyment in my begging, but not enough to abide by my wishes. “Not happenin',” he spun me around towards the staircase and kept one hand behind my shoulder as he forced me forward.

“What happened to being reasonable?” I asked. He’d told my dad once or twice today that he was ‘ _a very reasonable man as long as we were willing to cooperate_ ’. If you asked me, I had been hand in glove with him for the better part of the day. It wouldn’t’ve killed him to be a tad more accommodating to my measly request. 

As if he could read my mind on top of it all, he let out a symphonic laugh that made me wish I could record it and listen to it on repeat for the next few days. “Oh, I am being _very_ fucking reasonable.” he contended, moving from behind me to beside me as we started up the stairs. The stairwell wasn’t wide enough to adequately accommodate us walking side by side so my arm was constantly brushing up against his bare skin. 

I glanced up at him and his blatant exaggeration of the truth while keeping my hand on the railing. “Reasonably pushy,” I muttered my comeback in an airy tone to keep him from snapping at me should he hear me.

His hand snatched my arm to stop me midstep and faced my body towards him. “Would you care to repeat that?” He looked impressed at my attempt to talk back to him. 

My confidence had grown enough for me to stand up to him; something my father apparently couldn’t do. “I said you’re reasonably pushy.” Pulling out of his grasp, I folded my arms over my chest and raised my voice so he could hear me clearly. 

His chuckle caught me by surprise but mostly because he smiled and laughed more than anyone I’d met since the world ended. It took some getting used to. “That’s not the worst thing I’ve been called.” He winked before resting his hand on the small of my back to keep ushering me up the stairs. 

Satisfied with my small victory, I kept my momentum going. “No,” I drawled. “Really?” 

His hand kept inching along the back of my belt until he could wrap his fingers around my waist and pin me to his side as we walked. “Well, look at you, getting a backbone.” 

Pushing him away from me, I rolled my eyes and gave something between a smile and a smirk at his teasing. I wish I could say it was wholly unwelcome, but...a minute part of me rather enjoyed it. 

I could hear his snickering behind me as I put some distance between us so I could make it to the foot of the stairs before him. The second I realized I had been smiling, my face fell as the butterflies in my chest collapsed in on themselves. Was I just flirting with him? 

Negan, oblivious to the internal conflict I was trying to settle, came up behind me. “This one yours, then?” I had stopped in front of my bedroom door. It was cracked open, just the way I had left it after I woke up this morning. At least his people hadn’t looted my room--yet. I nodded but didn’t make an effort to move. He grumbled a sigh behind me and reached over my head to push the door open. “Well?” he exasperated. 

“Okay, okay,” I mumbled my submission and walked inside, one heavy foot after another. 

My room was rather bland as I lived under the constant pretense that I’d never stay. I didn’t have any pictures on the walls or any of the random artifacts I’d collected over the years on display. The only personal touch I added to the grey walled room was my tattered pile of books that had torn off covers or pages stained with blood on the bookshelf by the only window in the room. 

He shouldered past me to get a better look at the only place of privacy I had to my name. However, unlike the time he spent in the kitchen, he seemed far less interested in taking stock of what I had. His deceptively dark eyes kept wandering over to my unmade bed, or the shower through the open door to my bathroom, then ultimately to me, his teeth digging into his lip. His smile could’ve knocked me out cold quicker than a hit to the back of my head. 

Helpless, I stood in the center of the room. My left hand reached across my chest to hold onto my right arm as I let my eyes wander uncomfortably away from his unspoken thoughts. “Okay, we came, we saw, we conquered...can we go?” Being alone with him in the infirmary this morning was far easier than the unavoidable scenario I found myself in now. At least this morning I didn’t have these reckless urges floating through my head. 

He pursed his lips and took a step towards me. “What’s the rush? The only place you need to be is right fucking here with yours truly.” To make his point clear, he pointed to the vacant space square in front of him.

Frenetically, I looked to the walls as they closed in around me in hopes they would hold the answers I needed. “I just...we shouldn’t...be in here.” 

The raised brow smile he gave me said he knew he had me careening towards a breakdown. “Why? We’re not doing anything.” Technically, no, we weren’t. Who knows how long it would stay that way, though. But what could he possibly want to do with me?! He was at least twice my age...which _really_ should’ve negated how charismatic and handsome I found him.

Oh, God, maybe I was just as screwed up as him. 

I continued to fight his reasoning with every excuse in the book, regardless of how childish they sounded. "I don't think my dad would...appreciate you in my room...with me." Though, after what I’d seen today, I don’t know if he would actually _do_ anything about it.

"Well, your daddy ain't here now, is he?" I shook my head, knowing full well my dad may have been on the other side of the country for how little he could help me now. "You've seen him. He's broken, torn the fuck open. The only thing he gives two shits about is making sure I don't kill any more of your worthless fuckin’ neighbors." He walked me back against the wall, his hand reaching out to close my bedroom door once it was in his reach. I jumped once at the sound and then again when my shoulders knocked against the wall, telling me I had nowhere to go. “Forget about your dad. I wanna know what _you_ want.” 

“O-Okay.” I didn’t know what I was agreeing to but it made him smile a little bit and it made me feel at peace with how lost I felt.

Carefully, he placed his hands on either side of me, leaning against the wall until we were at the same height. He managed to knock the air out of my lungs with a swift hit to my chest without laying a finger on me. He waited for me to catch my breath before he decided to overwhelm me with a sultry inflection. “So, let me ask you somethin', darlin'. Do _you_ want me to go?” 

My eyes, blue, wide, and untouched as the bottom of the ocean, went from staring at the steel toe of his boots that had broken through the leather, to the stark tattoos on his arm, until I got caught up in his snow-white smile, framed perfectly by the flecks of grey in his beard. If he hadn’t been so close, he wouldn’t have been able to see the sheer shake of my head. 

It would make my life easier if he left; if he never knew I existed. That didn’t mean I wanted him gone, though. No person, dead or alive, excited my jaded heartbeat the way he did. He made me feel like I was living, not just surviving. The erroneous form of attention he gifted me was more than I had received from my father or anyone else in years, and I wanted to cling to it for a little bit longer. 

By the time he smiled, his face was so close to mine that our lips almost touched. The man had little to no regard for personal space, that was certain. “Then in that case, even if they do find those guns you lost, come back with me.” His tone leant itself to begging, a gruff, swaying imploration. “I can give you whatever you want. Just say the fucking word." I didn’t know someone as imperious as him was capable of pleading. It was heart-wrenching and a dangerously manipulative tactic that was pulling the cracks in my willpower apart. 

As I tried to understand exactly what he was asking, I’d never felt silence so heavy. I tilted my head down and used the gravity of my predicament to anxiously chew on the inside of my lip, threatening to break the skin. The pain brought me back to my senses, if only for a moment.

I kept my sights locked on the floorboards, afraid of what would come out of my mouth if I looked at him. “I...you...I can’t leave. We should...I should go.” Yet, I couldn’t move. Rather, I didn’t want to. 

The tips of his fingers lifted my chin back up so his eyes could memorize the fluctuating colors of mine before settling on my shuddering breath. “You can say yes, darlin’. I know you want to.” He moved his mouth closer to mine. “It’ll be our little secret.” His teeth bit down and tugged on my lower lip to give it a reprieve from the damage I had been inflicting. I whimpered softly against him before he let it go. I felt a hollow, inexplicable pain at the fact he didn’t kiss me. I knew it would’ve been...obscene, but what would be the harm in one fleeting touch? 

He groaned, and I thought I upset him, but he seemed more frustrated than irritated. “God fucking damn, I could get into a _shitload_ of trouble with you.” I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, but I had an inkling that it was something tremendously unholy. “But I ain't doin’ shit until you say yes.” 

My back somehow pressed itself further into the wall as I began to fidget. The knots in my stomach, the burning ache between my legs, and the insoluble need for him to touch me were things I had only read about in my books. The fact I was feeling everything all at once was so, _so_ profane, and it turned my pulse into an erratic trainwreck. I would’ve gladly passed out if it meant I could find some peace. 

I closed my eyes when the tip of his nose skirted along my jawline. Using my painfully obvious weakness to his advantage, he kissed below my ear but it was so light that it could have been mistaken for a breeze through an open window. I exhaled sharply, and my chest ached with the effort while my hands were balled into fists and pinned to my side to keep from touching him.

He breathed a heavenly smile, contrasting the roughened whisper. “You look like you got something you wanna say,” he tested my willpower again with his lips just a breath from mine. All I’d have to do was tilt my head a fraction of an inch… “Well?” 

It’d be harmless, I told myself. I had kissed Spencer before, and it never meant anything. This wouldn’t be any different. My standstill heart and gasping breath said otherwise because this wasn’t anything I’d ever known. I was breathing in more of him than the ample oxygen in the room. In the midst of not being able to think straight, my eyes were still closed, and I could feel every little thing about him.

His beard scratched at my skin and his nose brushed against mine. I could taste the heat of his breath on my lips and hear the steady increase of his heart beating in his chest, just as much as I felt my self-restraint slipping through my fingertips when he grabbed my waist in his hand. 

God, I wanted him. I wanted him like a starving desert wanted rain, down to the last drop; craved his touch so much that I didn’t want to go on living if I couldn’t have it. I wanted to hear him breathing my name in my ear as my nails carved my surrender into his back. The most reprehensible part of it all, though, is I wanted him to take every part of me. From the unspoken words in my mouth, to the way my soul ached to be the holy wine that clung to his lips when I gave into him. 

I just wanted to know what it would feel like...to be held without violence. To beg, to plead, to want to be touched until nothing could erase the evidence of his affection from my skin. It was an intoxication I could only find in my dreams. 

But the thinnest thread of reasoning kept me from coming undone. “I don’t think this is a good idea.” I could hardly get the words out, both because I couldn't breathe and because I didn't want to say them.

He wasn't about to let me give up so easily. “So you’re thinking about it.” Rather than asking, he simply stated it as fact, already knowing the answer.

“It’s a...little hard not to.” I stammered. 

He flashed a bright but seductive smile that I had to close my eyes to for a moment to keep from getting distracted by his peccable charm. “Fuckin’ tell me about it.” 

I put my hand on his chest so I could find a second to breathe. “Could you...give me some time to think it over?” If anything, I was delaying the inevitable. Just like he said. 

He bit down on his lip at my attempt to deny the wants and needs that he apparently thought I had been deprived of. “I ain’t blind to the way you look at me, so don’t fucking fuck with me.” His hands fell as he stood straight, and I took a deep breath of fresh air once I had my personal space back. With him towering over me though, I still felt like a caged bird. 

Had I really been _that_ blatant about it? 

Almost whining, I refuted him, my fingers clawing at the fabric of his shirt in frustration. “I’m not!” I didn’t know what I was doing or what he was doing to me, but I hated how comfortably uncomfortable I felt right now. I wanted him gone just as much as I wanted him here.

Still, he pushed me to go against what I knew was wrong. “No, I want to hear you say it.” He rested his forearm on the wall behind me and leaned forward so I could satiate my desires by keeping a hold on him. “Let a bad word slip out of that beautiful fucking mouth.” Slowly, he emphasized the last few words. 

I looked up at him from beneath my lashes, hesitation making my lips twitch nervously. “I...I’m not...fucking with you.” My mouth burned as much as the first time I ever took a shot of whiskey. It gave me the same rush of adrenaline, too.

Proudly, he grinned, alleviating the immediate guilt I felt for swearing. “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” I shook my head, flustered beyond recognition. He hummed, his voice rougher than ever. “I, on the other hand,” his fingers locked themselves around my wrist, his eyes all too amused by my palpable confusion. He untangled my fingers from his white shirt only to flatten my palm against his waist, just above his belt buckle, my fingers pointed towards his boots, “am _very_ hard.” 

I let him push my hand down over his belt, then down the line of his zipper and along the inside of his upper thigh. Reflexively, my fingers curled around the rigid commodity he intended me to find. It took me a moment to realize _what_ I was touching, but the second I did, I yanked my hand back with a gasp of shock.

Then, without thinking, I slapped him so hard across the face that I could see my handprint beneath his peppered beard, and the sound echoed through the room as he stumbled back. I shook some feeling back into my hand before I held it protectively against my chest. I’d punched my fair share of people who had it coming, but that felt like smacking a cement wall. 

His lips were parted as if he was about to exclaim something about the pain I inflicted on him. His eyes were just wide enough to show that getting promptly hit across the face was something new to him, and I think we were both in the dark about what to do next. 

Slowly, with the same caution one gives to a wild animal, he looked at me once more, a smile on his lips as he rubbed the skin beneath his beard. “Shit, okay, I crossed the line. I deserved that.” His humility was both endearing and heart-rending. 

“Oh my God,” I sharply inhaled at what I’d done. He looked so apologetic and dejected that I immediately regretted it. I could’ve just taken my hand back. I didn’t have to hit him! “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” Frustrated with myself, I whimpered an apology. What the heck was I thinking?! I’d be lucky if I didn’t lose my arm.

Gingerly, he reached for my hand and placed it back on his cheek, where I could feel the magnitude of his smile. “Are you shittin’ me? That was fuckin’ hot.” With his guiding touch, my hand drifted along the path of his strong set jaw until he could place a kiss on my palm before letting it go. I didn’t think anything could ever feel so nice. “I could get off just by thinking about it.” 

Half expecting him to yell at me or individually break my fingers, I questioned everything he said, especially the last part...whatever that meant. “You--What?”

He snorted a laugh at my naivety. “What? No guy’s ever told you that he jacks off to the thought of you while he’s taking a shower or some shit?” A muddled frown and shake of my head answered his question. I’d never met or lived with anyone as crass as him, so no. “Not even that fucking sad excuse of a boyfriend you got?” 

“He’s not my…” I started to correct him but quickly decided that the controversy wasn’t worth diving into, “no.” 

“Fuck me, darlin’, you live with a bunch of pussies. Shit.” The laugh he filled the room with was drawn slowly from his chest. Nervous as ever, my hands were shaking, and I couldn’t stop running my tongue across my lower lip every thirty seconds. “C’mon,” as if everything that just transpired had been a figment of my imagination, he rested his hand behind my shoulder to usher me away from the wall. “Let’s go see if your dickhead dad found my guns before I do something that gets my jaw broken.” 

* * *

With my arms loosely crossed over my chest, my nails scratched at my elbows to keep my mind from continuously slipping back to what nearly transpired in my bedroom. While I sat deliberately close to him on the ledge of his cargo truck as I silently sorted through the amalgam of feelings in my head, he had been using a knife to cut into an apple he took from my kitchen.

As he shaved off slices of fruit, the setting sun shaved off what remained of my freedom. I hadn’t seen the slightest sign of my father or his success. I still had hope that he would find the missing guns, but, at the same time, I was mentally preparing myself for the possibility that I’d be spending the rest of my nights under a roof I didn’t know. 

As the Saviors’ visit came to an end, a few of his people were hauling mismatched pieces of people’s furniture and milk crates of medical supplies into the truck, but I couldn’t seem to find anything within me that cared about how many of our belongings they were taking. I was more concerned with the glances of intrigue and condescending amusement from his men over the fact that I had more or less become Negan's willing hostage. 

The devil in question nudged me to gain my attention. I looked over to see him offering me a piece of fruit that rested on the tip of his blade. Hesitantly, I took it from him but awkwardly held on to it rather than immediately biting into it. Apples had never been my favorite, especially the green ones, whatever those were called. 

Unable to allow me to make a choice without his influence, he did his best to change my mind. "An apple a day keeps the big bad wolf away," he sang jovially before eating a slice of his own. If not for his blithesome behavior, the way his tongue ran across his lip when he smiled could have convinced me to do anything. 

I contemplated his offering, knowing what it would mean if I bit into it. "Is that supposed to be you?" Winking, he tapped his index finger against the tip of my nose a few times to deem me correct. I was long past the point of trying to hide my reactions to every little thing he said or did, but I still looked down at the ground when my teeth dug into my kittenish smile in reply to this lighthearted side he let bleed through his intimidating exterior. 

I found it strange. Here he was with his people taking everything we owned, yet I felt that _he_ had given me all the validation and attention I had been seeking. Such a sentiment may have been misguided, but I no longer cared. After all, when was the last time I indulged in something that made _me_ happy?

He leaned down to tell me a secret and I was starting to enjoy the feeling of his lips against my ear. "See, I'm not all that bad." 

"I know.” Finally, I bit off half of my slice. After I swallowed, I kindly added, “I never said you were." Compared to some of the people who still haunted my waking dreams, he was a saint. 

His smile met his ochre eyes as he pinched the scarlet roses beneath my skin that only seemed to blossom when he was around. "God damn, you are fuckin' adorable as fuck.” He brushed the hair away from my eyes when I looked up at him. “Shit. I would love to--"

"Negan!" My dad’s call cut through a sentence I would've liked to hear the end of. Though...maybe it was for the best. 

Negan tore his concentration away from me and stood on his feet, tossing what was left of the apple into a nearby patch of bushes before collapsing his knife and placing it back into his pocket. Though I could feel my father’s eyes on me as he approached, I avoided his gaze and remained seated, my fingers curled around the ledge to keep me from fidgeting. 

Negan glanced down and smirked at the position I had staked, but let me be for the first time today so he could antagonize my father, something he clearly enjoyed. “Well, ho-ly shit, look at that. They were here after all.” Embittered as ever, my dad handed him a small velvet liquor bag of what I could only assume were the missing guns. I breathed a sigh of relief, but it felt anticlimactic. “I ain’t gonna lie, I was hopin' you wouldn’t find ‘em because I would have loved to spend some one on one time with her.” He laughed condescendingly and nodded to me, leaning back on his heels. “Show her what a real man can do.” 

My father snarled, his protective but terrifyingly primitive side making itself known for the first time today. “If you ever touch her, it’ll be the last thing you do.” It was clear he had had enough of being pushed around and beaten down by a man that he kept alive for reasons beyond my understanding. 

The leader’s grin fell and shattered into a blackened scowl. “Don’t make me remind you of what happened last time you threatened me.” His words were unforgiving and as portentous as the black ash spewing from a volcano bound to wipe out an entire civilization. 

Wrought with visible irritation, my dad tapped the end of Negan’s bat against the pavement to drive some force into his words. “I have done everything you’ve asked. Just give me my daughter, take your shit, and get the hell out of here.” He rarely swore. I hadn’t seen him this upset in a long time. 

“Fair enough.” His shoulders shrugged off his disappointment from beneath his leather jacket. He turned to me and gave a flippant wave of his hand for me to return to my dad’s anxious but open embrace. As I crossed the border between the strangely warm company of a stranger and the protective familiarity of my father, Negan watched me with a predatory look on his face.

In exchange for my safety, Negan took Lucille back from my father. Once his hands were free, my dad pushed me behind his back to ensure I would remain out of harm’s reach for the remainder of the day. From over my dad's shoulder, I watched Negan hold his bat up to examine its integrity with an inexplicable pang of jealousy. 

“Alright, prick, you win. I’ll go.” he sighed as if he had grown bored anyway, but not without a mischievous smile tacked on to keep anyone’s hopes from getting too high. “I just want to hear those two, magical little words.” I knew the last thing my dad wanted to give him was gratitude, but the Savior’s leader saved him the trouble. “From her,” he pointed at me before curling his finger towards himself.

I started removing myself from my dad’s shadow, just enough so I could have an unfettered view of the man who had the ability to take what remained of my innocence with the blink of an eye or the sound of his voice. 

Even though my dad didn’t know exactly what my intentions were rooted in, he tried to stop me. “Chastity, you don’t have to--” 

“Thank you,” Moving away from him, I cut my father off so I could, a little too eagerly, voice my fervent appreciation to a man who didn’t deserve a single syllable of it. Insolently, Negan stepped forward and rested his hand beneath my chin, his thumb brushing just below my lower lip. His smile was just the faintest twitch of his lips. He almost looked speechless; an incredibly attractive look on him. “Thank you,” Inaudibly, my lips moved around the words when he touched me again. 

“Pleasure’s all mine, darlin’,” his fingertips started tracing their way down my jaw until his palm had the lightest pressure against my cheek. It covered every inch of my skin in goosebumps. 

I could feel my father’s tired, glacial eyes flickering between me and his enemy, addled by the vivid fascination on my face. Even a blind man would be able to see that there was an unspoken yet unexpected attachment between us. Sharper than an untouched knife, my dad shoved Negan’s hand away from me and gave him a stern look. Willfully ignorant of the temperamental ledge he had pushed my father onto, Negan’s gaze lingered on my face for a few more beats, more thoughtful than anything. 

Then, the grin that was created solely to get under my father’s skin graced the leader once more as he took a few steps back. He raised his brows mockingly when he glanced at my dad, no doubt taunting him about our ‘little secret’. 

“I’ll see you next week.” chuckling, he winked at me and swung his bat around in his hand before he let it fall against his shoulder, turning on his heel to get into the truck I had been sitting on a few minutes ago.

As I stared after him, watching him leave as precipitously as he arrived, I realized that I had been frowning all the while for reasons that left me unsettled. The intrusive sound of an engine drowned out whatever supportive words my father tried consoling me with, but I was too transfixed on the ever-growing distance between myself and the brake lights of Negan’s truck to care about what my dad had been saying. 

The king of the Saviors wasn’t heinous. I’d met truer forms of evil created by the bloodied hands of humanity’s end, and he was, at best, a tyrant with a twisted and blushingly crass sense of humor. Sure, he was manipulative, but he had a genuine joyful charm about him that I hadn’t encountered in anyone for years. It felt like the warmth of the sun on my skin after spending month after month in the unforgiving chill of a dark winter. 

Setting aside his astonishingly good looks, he could be a brutal extortionist and a severe leader of men, but he didn’t lack compassion or kindness. It just had to be earned from him. How I had managed to do so left me at a loss for words. 

His commanding nature had created the ultimate method of survival for himself and those closest to him. The only thing he feared was his own humanity. He was intelligent and perceptive, despite any preconceived notions that had been derived from his coarse behavior. I found his proclivity towards psychological warfare intriguing, too, as he used it remarkably well, better than anyone else who ever attempted it. After all, he had been able to use it to break my father down to nothing; the first and only person to do so. 

He left me debilitated in dysfunctional awe. 

I missed him already. 

* * *

Not to be dramatic or anything, but I would burn down an orphanage, my house, my car, and inevitably myself for this illegal greek god of a man. Fuck.

**Author's Note:**

> "We did it. All of us. Even the hundreds of deleted drafts. Hell, they get the spirit award for sure." lmao
> 
> Grad school has made me realize that I am shit and everything I make is also shit but I think it's the American Dream or something to do things that you're bad at so this was a testament to my idiotic determination.
> 
> Thanks to all who read/glanced/cringed at this. I hope you're well, staying safe, and have a lovely holiday season ahead of you.
> 
> And just remember, 2020 may have sucked, but next year, we finally get the Negan spin-off episode we deserve.


End file.
